Of Sparrows and Dead Things
by kangeiko
Summary: Set after GoF – Sev returns to darkness. More or less. Voldemort / Snape in a twisted way. Strong warnings of weirdness and gore.


TITLE: OF SPARROWS AND DEAD THINGS

DISCLAIMER: I don't own them.

SUMAMRY: Um. Severus Snape's POV. Set after GoF – Sev returns to darkness. More or less.

PAIRINGS: Snape/Voldemort in a twisted way, Lily/Snape in an almost way, and Harry/Snape in a non-existent way.

RATING: Very strong R. Nothing explicit here, but some icky concepts. See the warnings below.

WARNINGS: Weirdness. Gore. Necrophilia. Suicide. Ish. More weirdness.

ARCHIVE: Nope.

FEEDBACK: Yep.

NOTES: My very nasty bout of flu just got nastier. Am on very funky painkillers that make things fuzzy but don't kill the pain. Yeesh. Anyway. Bear this in mind and the following will make much more sense.

A river runs through my house and no one can see it but me. It is wide – unexpectedly so – maybe even wider than the house itself. Its waters are murky, the debris of three and a half decades floating languidly through my living room, occasionally knocking into the furniture. There is little to commend this river as it sluices through my home, leaving waste and sand and rounded pebbles at the foot of my bed. It is all I could do to sleep with all of the clutter around, jarring into my bed during the night.

I left my house and the river flowing through it when, one morning, I woke up to find a dead sparrow on my bedside table. No idea how it had ended up in the torrents of the river, but it had certainly suffered as a result. Its little wings were broken; feathers everywhere. I stuffed some pomegranate seeds, sweet figs and crushed flowers into its open mouth and let the water reclaim it. I remember its – her – eyes, for I know the poor creature was a female. With young hatchlings, no doubt, who would probably have those same green eyes. Green, like the trampled grass on the banks of the river flowing through my kitchen. Green, like the seaweed that inexplicably finds its way into my frying pan and is cooked for dinner, despite just being debris. It tastes bitter, but that is half of its appeal.

Eggshells float down the river now. They never used to; it is quite disconcerting. There is still the faint smell of birth clinging to them, those small crushed remnants of a life. Perhaps the smell comes from the shredded seaweed instead. I do not know. I never cared enough before to return here and investigate. It never mattered enough to me, especially considering the latest thing my river has discovered, in honour of my return.

When I unlocked the front door, I had to wade through hip-deep debris in order to reach my bedroom. A lot of time has passed since I was last here; this place has the worst things washed up in it. Voodoo dolls of imaginary people – human sewage that walked and spoke and pretended to be alive – branches of weeping willows that whipped the empty covers of my bed in my absence. An unpleasant place, this, full of excesses and crushed waste from other people's lives. As if the waste from my own life cluttering up the room wasn't enough.

It has never been, though, has it? I've never had a bleeding heart, but I am a collector, not entirely by choice. The river brought me everything eventually, and I made use of it in some way or the other. Even if it was, in the case of that poor sparrow, to just send it on its way again.

You can forgive my surprise then when I came home to find someone in my bed. Thinking that perhaps some creature had taken comfort here – an unusual, though not entirely unprecedented, occurrence – I peeled back the covers cautiously. They were wet and sticky, smelling faintly of salt water and of sweat. Whatever this was, it had come from somewhere far away, using the river, in all its tempestuous ribald joy, to reach me. Me. Why?

The flesh found by my questing fingers was cold and clammy. I circled an exposed limb with the palms of my hands, pressing inwards and waiting for the hairs on the skin to rise along with, perhaps, the owner of the limb. This, however, assumed both hair and an owner, neither of which was present.

I finished peeling the covers back, ignoring the slick smacking sound they made as they came away from the body. The smell of salt and of decay lapped at my feet, crawling up my bare legs. I knelt on the bed and regarded the body splayed in front of me.

What a marvel the river had brought me! I knew this body, certainly – I had even known it intimately at one point. The knowledge of where everything went and how things worked came in useful as I slowly assembled a human out of the collection of body parts that shivered in my bed. I know what I am doing when it comes to body parts and involuntary reflexes. I can explain away the lump of green moss stuck in my throat as I looked into a dead sparrow's eyes. I can explain why I brush away the eggshells from my robes, throwing them in the water lest the sparrow's hatchling mistake me for a protector. I can tell you why I do not look happy whenever I return to this house, but I think you can already guess. Finds like this collection of angry, twitching limbs are not to be unexpected.

And I, unlike many others, know what to do.

First I cleaned away the worms nestled around each limb, timidly trying to cushion it with their spineless bodies. Throw them away – back into the river.

Next, pluck a heartstring and thread a needle. Best heat it in the fire first, just to make sure it's good.

Red hot, and it is.

I have always been good with my hands. They do not shake as they piece a body together, soothing its frightened jerks. It is reassuring to think that he still needs me, that he was not complete without me. Reassuring, but also vaguely morbid. There is still a twitching, bleeding dead body in my bed.

It does not matter. He behaves as though he is still alive, and that is enough for me. I can ignore then sparrow feathers still trapped beneath his fingernails; I can overlook the coldness of his mouth as he licks first his lips and then my face, tracing a cool and slightly clammy path down my left cheekbone. I can forgive him his sharp nails digging tightly into my flesh, obviously fully determined to never let me go again.

I can forgive him all that, because he cannot hurt me. I matter too much to him and everyone else too little. Everyone else can swim; they can float down the river, always on the look-out for an arm, a leg, an eye that cannot be named. Everyone else collects eggshells, trying to coax hatchling sparrows down, forgetting that the poor thing will die if it dives into the water after them. In that respect, at least, the squealing little sparrow-child and I are alike. We both dread the river.

I would say that it is a pity, then, that it has chosen to flow through my house, but it might be a lie. I have not been back here for so many years... I had not, truly, expected myself to return and gaze at the grisly trophies washed up on my kitchen table. It does not matter. I am here now.

I am here now, I tried to tell the body in my arms, but he shushed me with a dead kiss. I could feel my resolve beginning to weaken. I had only meant to make him love me, want me again. I had not anticipated his grip being this strong or his dead kiss this persuasive. I could taste salt water in his mouth, smell the grave on his breath. Sugar and salt, buried in the earth over running water. I looked at his slack lips and wondered what he would look like with sweet wild figs and flowers stuffed in between those two perfect rows of sharp teeth, pomegranate seeds on his cold, too-sweet pinkish tongue. I watched him, and suddenly realised that he was watching me too. Probably wondering the same thing. It's only fair.

I had come back here to make him indebted to me. I had come here to steal a kiss or two and leave him dismembered on my bed. The river had other ideas.

Perched on the edge of my bed looking down, I felt a twitching, clawed hand curl itself into my waist, securing itself to me. I felt empty air on the back of my neck, making me shiver. I felt the ghost of his lips, as dead as he. It was enough.

When he finally dived back into the murky water, it was with a last imploring glance at me. And I... I, who had done what I was bid to do, stood staring at the swirl of eggshells in the dark, angry waters. Crushed young hatchlings, lured to their deaths beneath the spray and waves for the entertainment of the debris drifting below. Crushed young hatchlings... and one of them with moss-green eyes and a mouth tasting of sweet wild figs and trampled flowers.

I closed my eyes.

The water lapped at me, tasting me cautiously before the spray embraced me, branches hooking me and dragging me under. As I spluttered, arms encircled me. Here, in the freezing cold of the river, they seemed almost warm. Almost alive.

He pressed those dead lips to my neck as I opened my eyes to see the birds watching overhead. The river kicked and raved around me, ripping cloth from slick, deadened bodies. I opened my mouth to his long-nailed fingers.

I opened my mouth and myself to him.

He, a sudden smile on his lips, is almost alive here. All appetite.

And I have found the perfect way to drown.

fin


End file.
